The $48 million Royal Park Hotel Hopes to be the
Third True Luxury Hotel in Metropolitan Detroit

By John Gallagher, Detroit Free PressKnight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Sep.
1, 2004 - For many new hotels, opening day means offering coffee and
muffins to guests. For the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester, today's
opening means the Italian chandeliers are hung with care, and the
croquet and bocce courts are groomed to perfection.

Welcome to
that rarity, a hotel that claims to offer luxury service and appears
ready to actually deliver it. Built for $48 million, the 143-room,
full-service hotel is bidding to become only the third true luxury
hotel in metropolitan Detroit, along with the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn
and the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham.

The prices can be steep:
Standard rooms start around $250 a night, and suites can go for $400
and up. But the rewards include elegant décor, fine dining and service
that rises to the level of pampering.

"This hotel is going to
be a home away from home for our clientele," said Tony Torbati,
managing director of the Royal Park. "There's no 'no' in our
vocabulary. What you say goes. We will find a way to please you, as
long as it's legal."

On Tuesday, crews were finishing
last-minute cleaning, and staffers who have been trained off-site for
the past few weeks were getting used to the new building. The hotel
plans a quiet opening today but a more formal opening party in
mid-October. The hotel is owned by a group of local investors that
includes Frank and Roy Rewold, whose Rochester-based construction firm,
Frank Rewold & Son, built it.

If there's little doubt the
Royal Park offers genuine luxury, some hotel industry experts question
whether the market in northern Oakland County is deep enough to support
it. The Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn benefits from the presence nearby of
Ford Motor Co.'s world headquarters. And the Townsend gains because
many guests need to meet with executives who live in Birmingham and
Bloomfield Hills. But some believe Rochester lacks similar advantages.

"To
go out to Rochester and build that kind of luxury, I hope they have
awfully deep pockets," said one industry insider who asked not to be
named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Torbati said
market studies show that economic development in northern Oakland
County and in Macomb County to the east has swelled to a point that it
will support such a hotel. The hotel hopes to draw business both from
DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group's U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills
and nearby auto suppliers, as well as the sports and show- business
trade connected with the Palace of Auburn Hills.

Preliminary
signs are good. The Royal Park is already booked for the Ryder Cup golf
tournament later this month, and it is talking with Detroit's Super
Bowl Host Committee about hosting corporate events when Super Bowl XL
is played at Ford Field in 2006. Greg DeSandy, director of sales, said
the Royal Park so far has booked 35 weddings ranging from 150 to 500
guests, and a cigars-and-cognac party during the Ryder Cup has sold
out.

Just in case, though, Torbati said the hotel will open
with 225 staffers and ramp up to its goal of more than 300 only when
the volume of bookings becomes clearer.

Chuck Skelton, an
industry consultant with Hospitality Advisers Inc. in Ann Arbor, said
staffing is one indicator of a true luxury property. An ordinary hotel
or motel without a restaurant or conference facilities might employ one
worker for every four rooms. A typical full-service Marriott or Westin
might increase that ratio to one employee for each room. But luxury
hotels typically staff two or more employees per room. The Royal Park
eventually plans to have about 2.5 per room.

"They certainly
have to have significantly higher staffing levels because a luxury
property by definition pampers the guest," Skelton said.

Architectural
elegance is another standard. If a highway motel is done in wallboard
and carpeting, the Royal Park offers marble floors, Italian
chandeliers, walnut and mahogany, copper roofing, leather, imported
rugs, plush fabrics and many other fine touches. A library off the
lobby is stocked with high-priced books on art, architecture and
photography. The largest of the suites has no less than four balconies.

"It's very elegant and comfortable, like an old manor house
would have it," said Victor Saroki, an architect whose Birmingham firm,
Victor Saroki and Associates, designed the Royal Park.

One of
the biggest selling points is the Conservatory, a glass-framed room
crafted in Belgium and then assembled on site. With a hand-blown
chandelier from the Venice, Italy, area, the Conservatory bids to
become the centerpiece of many a wedding celebration.

But, in
the end, the Royal Park's success will come down to how it treats its
guests. Pitched to a mix of experienced corporate travelers, demanding
sports and show business celebrities, and local folks celebrating
anniversaries and other special occasions, the Royal Park staff hopes
to make each guest's stay memorable.

That means having a staff
that recognizes guests by name, knows in advance which guest likes
which pillow, and keeps track of special requests, like who wants a
bucket of ice waiting in a room. Surprisingly, about two-thirds of the
Royal Park's staffers have not worked in the hotel industry before. But
Torbati said the right attitude is more important than experience. He
described it as "very strongly positive, very upbeat personality, doing
what it takes to please the customer. " Or, as DeSandy put it, they
need "bright eyes."

That attitude is key to true luxury
service, said Peter Wilde , managing director of the Townsend Hotel in
Birmingham, which is rated among the best hotels in the nation. The
Townsend and other luxury hotels try to empower those employees closest
to the customers -- doormen, desk clerks, waiters and waitresses -- to
do whatever it takes to anticipate and fulfill customer needs.

"You
have to create a culture where your staff is looking to be better every
day," Wilde said. "It's every single telephone call, it's every single
question, how well did we handle that. Did they escort the person
instead of just 'turn left' or 'turn right.' It's every single e-mail
that comes in, it's every single wake-up call, it is given with warmth
and sincerity. It's all those things that have to be worked on every
single day."

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